Episode Transcript
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0:02
For years, I went to a psychotherapist
0:05
just three doors down from a funeral
0:07
parlor. I gotta tell you,
0:09
passing by mourners on my way to therapy
0:12
really put me in the right headspace too, you
0:15
know, think about what I wanted my own life
0:17
to add up to. I highly
0:19
recommend choosing a psychotherapist
0:21
with an office next to a funeral parlor.
0:26
Now let's travel back in time nearly
0:28
a century ago to Manhattan's
0:30
Upper West Side. It's
0:33
a sweltering late summer day,
0:35
and we're standing in front of the Frank E. Campbell
0:38
Funeral Chapel, then located
0:40
at Broadway and sixty Street.
0:43
Over the next hundred years, Campbell's
0:45
will serve as the funeral home for legends
0:47
from Judy Garland to Jackie
0:50
Oh to the notorious b I. G.
0:53
But they won't draw the crowds seen
0:55
on Tuesday August
0:59
when the sidewalks are overflowing
1:01
with a crowd of some thirty thousand
1:04
warners. They've
1:07
all gathered here to catch a final
1:09
glimpse of a fallen movie
1:12
star. Arguably
1:16
the first male sex symbol of
1:18
the silver screen. He
1:20
was in great physical shape, and
1:23
you see those rippling muscles
1:25
in his arms. I
1:27
mean, I don't know if you've ever seen the
1:29
videos of him doing his workout
1:32
while he's wearing pretty much just
1:35
skivvy. Okay, I'll
1:38
check those out. I haven't seen those. I
1:40
need to see that he was labeled
1:42
the Great Lover, or even more
1:45
indelibly, the
1:48
Latin Lover. He would
1:50
hold you in his arms
1:53
if you were a beautiful woman, and
1:55
kiss you passionately and brutally.
2:01
Can somebody turn down the thermostat and here
2:03
is I'm feeling hot? No
2:06
one burned up the screen like Rudolph
2:09
Valentino, driving women across
2:11
the planet wild in a way that
2:14
no one had before him, enough
2:16
to leave a permanent mark in the world
2:18
that he suddenly left behind. At the
2:20
tender age of thirty one. Along
2:26
Broadway, a procession of dark
2:28
cars carries Valentino's
2:30
rose covered, bronze and silver
2:32
coffin to the chapel. The
2:35
crowd grows unruly, a scene
2:37
recreated in the film
2:40
Valentino. Rain
2:46
is falling, but instead of cooling
2:48
things off, the crowd explodes
2:50
into a riot. The mourners
2:53
become a mob, push punching,
2:56
fighting their way to get into the funeral parlor.
3:00
The surgeon. Crowd pushes a line of policemen,
3:02
causing the windows of the chapel to shatter.
3:06
Mounted police officers try to quell
3:08
the riot, which lasts for hours.
3:11
Over a hundred are hurt. An
3:14
improvised emergency room is set
3:16
up inside the funeral chapel, with the
3:19
doctors and nurses ministering to the
3:21
many injured. The streets
3:23
are covered in debris. A
3:26
young woman drenched from head to toe
3:28
ambles in her stockinged feet, weeping.
3:31
I must see him, I must
3:33
see him. But
3:35
how did we get here? How
3:39
did Rudolph Valentino reach such
3:41
dizzy heights? Why
3:43
all of this howling, hysterical
3:45
sorrow? And what exactly
3:48
is a Latin lover? He's a
3:50
handsome Latin with an accent. He's
3:53
in the living in.
3:57
Of course, there would be many rivals for valen
4:00
Tino's Latin lover Crown. I
4:03
was ruined by Raymond Navarrow. Raymond
4:05
Navarro the movie star will
4:08
tell their stories and talk to Latin
4:10
lover Scion Lorenzo Lamas
4:13
Dad was the original Latin
4:15
dragon. He was the original lothario
4:18
of fame and notoriety,
4:20
and his romances
4:22
are legendary. Did you tell me
4:24
something, Fernando, you have a terrible
4:26
reputation. Do you still
4:28
have a lot of fooling around to do? And
4:30
we'll tell you how the Latin Lover vanished
4:33
from Hollywood just as suddenly
4:35
as he had appeared. I'm in a night.
4:39
No fine man is allowed to play
4:41
a leading role, like if we have an operation
4:44
of someone from
4:46
CBS Sunday morning and I heart
4:49
I'm Morocca and this is
4:51
mobituaries this
4:58
moment dolf Valentino,
5:01
Ramon Navarro and a Tale
5:04
of Two Lamas. October
5:06
eighth, the
5:09
Death of the Latin Lover. World
5:21
War One ended in and
5:24
its conclusion ushered in the beginning
5:26
of the sexual Revolution. Wait
5:32
a minute, the sexual revolution
5:35
that happened in the nineteen sixties, didn't
5:37
it well, There actually was
5:39
an earlier sexual revolution in
5:41
the nineteen twenties. Out
5:44
of the devastation of World War One emerged
5:47
a new American woman with a new
5:49
sense of sexual freedom, a
5:51
modern woman. Women had finally
5:54
won the right to vote, and we're joining the workforce
5:56
in unprecedented numbers. The
5:59
Great War had made American women more
6:01
aware of the world at large, and
6:04
these women were going to the movies.
6:06
Approximately eighty three percent
6:08
of movie goers were women. Enter
6:11
Rudolph Valentino, our first
6:13
Latin lover of the silver screen.
6:18
Valentino was born Rodolfo Pietro
6:21
Filiberto Raphaele Googliemi
6:24
on May six in
6:26
the province of Toronto in southern Italy.
6:29
What was the appeal of Valentino?
6:33
Well, he was handsome, he
6:35
was elegant. He
6:38
was a dynamite dancer.
6:41
I mean, he was a professional dancer
6:44
before he became an actor. I'm
6:47
talking to Emily wardis Lder, author
6:49
of Dark Lover, The Life and Death of
6:51
Rudolph Valentino. Try
6:54
to ignore the noise in the background. And
6:56
if you've seen him dance on screen,
6:59
he was so graceful
7:01
and dynamic as a performer.
7:05
Emily, are you sorry? Are you cooking
7:07
there? My husband is getting ready
7:09
for his lunch. What is he What is
7:11
he making? Salad? Okay?
7:14
Al right? Could he just be a little quieter with the tongs.
7:19
The Italian economy collapsed after
7:22
World War One, and Rodolfo
7:24
emigrated alone to America, arriving
7:26
at Ellis Island at the age of eighteen.
7:32
He first made his living as what was known
7:35
as a taxi dancer. He
7:37
was doing that pretty much from the time
7:39
he was right off the boat in New York.
7:43
Taxi dancers worked in dance halls,
7:45
charging patrons a dime for a dance,
7:47
a profession immortalized by the Rogers
7:50
and Hart song ten cents a dance,
7:53
and was that His primary ambition
7:55
was that sort of the end goal to be a
7:57
dancer, not his empty
8:00
at all. He wanted respect,
8:04
but working as a taxi dancer was seen
8:06
a sort of jigglo adjacent.
8:09
That's not high prestige
8:12
all that you need. Come
8:16
on. At
8:22
twenty three, Rodolpho headed to Hollywood
8:25
and adopted the much more marquis friendly
8:27
name Rudolph Valentino. He
8:30
played bit parts in various B movies,
8:33
often his Criminals and Low Lifes, until
8:36
he was discovered by June Mathis,
8:38
one of the most successful women in
8:40
early Hollywood. She was a
8:43
power in her own right. I
8:45
think most people would be surprised
8:47
at the power that several
8:50
women had in Hollywood during the silent
8:52
film era. Women were
8:55
a force in the era of silent
8:57
films. They only lost
9:00
hour later, and they did
9:02
of course. Matthis was a screenwriter
9:05
and producer, ultimately being credited
9:07
on more than one films,
9:10
and she picked him out
9:12
and she gets the credit for
9:14
being the person who discovered law Valentino.
9:17
Oh, if you're intrigued by unsung powerful
9:20
women in Hollywood's earliest days, check
9:22
out our season one episode Forgotten
9:24
Forerunners, which features silent
9:27
film trailblazer Lois Webber. Okay,
9:29
so there are no taped interviews of June
9:32
Mathis, but there's this ABC
9:34
made for TV movie from five
9:37
called The Legend of Valentino,
9:39
and it stars the incomparable Suzanne
9:42
Plachette as June Mathis.
9:44
Here she is arguing with Metro Studio
9:47
executives over whether or not to cast
9:49
Valentino in her next big movie.
9:52
Photographs like a foreigner. Foreigners have to
9:54
play heavies. American women won't trust
9:56
them. They trust American man
10:00
read them, don't they? Who was talking about marriage? I'm
10:02
talking about sex, Sam.
10:05
This is nineteen twenty. It
10:07
would just be through a world war. Women
10:09
are wearing one piece bathing suits, they're
10:11
drinking bathtub gin, they're dancing the black
10:13
bottom. And the only
10:16
thing that hasn't changed is the screen. I
10:18
mean, we are still pretending it's sex
10:20
was invented by Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.
10:22
Now, why can't we be closer to reality?
10:25
June Mathis had seen Valentino
10:27
dance. She knew he had
10:30
it. I mean, women aboard
10:32
their restless They're tired of being
10:34
protected and American men are dull.
10:37
Now, by the early nineteen twenties, Americans
10:39
had been going to the movies for more than a
10:41
decade, but
10:43
the typical leading man of the day was
10:46
square jawed all American, unassailably
10:49
moral. Think that the swashbuckling
10:51
Douglas Fairbanks, very
10:54
Protestant, hair parted,
10:57
white shirt suit. We're
11:00
talking menace here, We're talking
11:02
a gentleman. A gentleman.
11:05
Was he demonstrative with
11:07
women? There wasn't much heat, but
11:10
Douglas Fairbanks was certainly very
11:12
exciting. Not as a lover
11:14
on screen. It was an athlete,
11:17
not such a good kisser. But
11:21
for decades Italian immigrants
11:23
had been smeared in newspapers as
11:26
gangsters, which is also the only
11:28
way they showed up in movies. The
11:30
Emergency Quota Act codified
11:34
this bigotry by drastically
11:36
limiting the number of people coming in from
11:38
southern and Eastern Europe, there
11:40
was a special prejudice against
11:43
Italian immigrants. They
11:45
were just one step above
11:48
being black in the eyes
11:51
of filmmakers and society at
11:53
large white audiences.
11:57
But June math Is envisioned an alternative.
12:00
Bear in mind this was a full century
12:02
before me too. I mean, if we're going
12:04
to buy a dream, we're gonna buy the one about
12:06
the handsome farn who drags it into his bed
12:08
against our will. You'd like
12:11
that. I love that scene,
12:13
and so would your wife. Mathis
12:15
got her way and cast Valentino
12:18
in her film The
12:20
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,
12:23
and one scene in that film came to
12:25
define Valentino for his entire
12:27
career. The tango scene.
12:32
Well, it starts with menace, which
12:36
used to be and maybe still is,
12:38
considered sexy. Early
12:41
on in the Silent film, Valentino's
12:43
character Julio is drinking in
12:45
a crowded, divy Argentine bar,
12:48
wearing a gaucho outfit, wide
12:50
flat brimmed hat with tassels and a
12:52
chin strap, buttoned up blousy
12:55
shirt. A man and woman are
12:57
dancing a jaunty tango. Valentino's
13:00
drives up and taps the man on the shoulder. Never
13:03
removing his lit cigarette, he asks
13:05
to cut in. Valentino exchanges
13:07
a smile and wink with the saucy Senorita.
13:11
The man, however, refuses. Valentino's
13:14
eyes widened with fury. He then
13:16
throws the man aside and beats him. Then
13:19
he breaks in and grabs
13:21
the woman quite brutally,
13:24
and then tangles off with her. So
13:27
there is Mannas
13:29
about to knock you out if you don't
13:32
hand over the woman. And that was
13:34
sexy. Oh
13:36
yes, okay,
13:42
these movies have not aged well, but
13:44
Valentino's on screen persona was
13:46
an exotic fantasy that
13:49
women of the era bought into in a
13:51
big way. The famous
13:53
tango scene only lasted a total
13:55
of four minutes, but it had a
13:57
seismic impact. Is this
14:00
the scene that really makes him a superstar
14:03
in my opinion? Yes,
14:05
But the Sheik took
14:07
over and became better
14:10
known, and that was a real craze.
14:14
Valentino's first leading man role
14:17
came that same year in The
14:19
Chic, the movie adaptation of
14:21
the steamy, hugely popular
14:23
romance novel The Chic, which
14:26
was basically the Fifty Shades of Gray of
14:28
its day. This was the racy
14:30
debut of thirty nine year old British
14:32
novelist E. M. Hull a k a
14:35
Edith maud Hull. The book
14:37
inspired a chart topping hit called
14:39
The Chic of Araby. Crowds
14:42
went absolutely wild for Valentino
14:45
as a love struck but brutal Arab
14:47
chic who melts the heart of a captive
14:50
modern woman. Chic mania
14:52
swept the world. Oh and
14:54
I must see the house where Rudolph
14:56
Valentino lived. Oh, I'll
14:59
never forget him in the sheet.
15:02
I'm that her
15:07
love. It
15:11
also inspired a string of chic rip
15:13
off movies, and it continued
15:16
to press the tension between sex
15:18
and violence. That's an element in
15:20
some fantasy romance attention
15:23
that Valentino would exploit in roll
15:25
after role. And yet now
15:28
you also wrote about a vulnerable,
15:31
wounded quality that
15:33
Valentino had. He has
15:35
that in life, and he has it on the screen
15:37
too. Yes, I think it's
15:39
about its own emotional
15:42
availability and vulnerability.
15:45
You could see it in his face. That
15:50
softer side was an essential part
15:52
of his appeal. He would kiss the back
15:54
of women's hands, he would bow flourishes
15:57
of chivalry that American women weren't
15:59
used to seeing in American men, his
16:02
courtesy, his focus, his
16:04
intensity. He would make
16:07
you feel like you were the only
16:09
woman in the world while he
16:11
was kissing you anyhow, and
16:14
this gets to the heart of what made
16:16
Valentino so different from the leading
16:18
men who came before. He put
16:20
the woman front and sent her very
16:23
important. The woman is
16:26
central. It's all about
16:29
adoring the woman, and
16:32
women adored him right back, sneaking
16:34
onto trains, hiding in bathrooms
16:37
just for a chance to get close to him.
16:39
One Boston headline read ten
16:42
girls mob World's greatest
16:44
kisser. Women of all ages
16:49
created the matinee idol
16:52
is What is Bill doing back there? Is he pounding?
16:55
Veal was pounding? Uh? Tell
16:58
me the truth? Is all this talk about Valentino
17:01
making him jealous? No, he wants
17:03
his lunch, but
17:06
out of the public eye. Rudy was
17:09
unlucky in love and bad with
17:11
money. He endured two unhappy
17:13
marriages and made poor business
17:15
decisions. Leapfrogging
17:18
from studio to studio. Valentino
17:20
burned bridges and lost allies
17:22
and friends in the process, including
17:25
his first champion. June Mathis
17:27
newspaper soon took to mocking the star
17:30
as Vassilino because of his slicked
17:32
back hair. Now, we've talked
17:34
plenty about how women reacted to Valentino.
17:37
Indeed, Valentino was a man
17:39
made by women. But how did
17:41
most American men react to him
17:45
with suspicion? Hey,
17:47
he was a foreigner. He didn't
17:50
have exactly white complexion.
17:53
He had all of complexion, which
17:55
made him suspect. And see
17:59
the wise girl friend mother liked
18:01
him too much, so that was a threat.
18:04
Valentino knew that he was beautiful.
18:07
He dressed to thrill. He wore
18:09
jewelry spats over his shoes,
18:12
lemon yellow gloves with his impeccably
18:14
tailored suits. Think David
18:16
Bowie meets Harry Styles. Enter
18:19
the infamous pink powder puff
18:21
attack. That
18:24
was such a smear. That was
18:26
a smear job, but it got
18:28
a lot of press, the pink powder
18:31
puff attack. They attacked
18:33
his masculinity totally
18:36
without basis. In July, in
18:40
anonymous Chicago Tribune editorial
18:42
alleged that the city's new Aragon
18:45
ballroom had installed a pink
18:47
powder puff vending machine in the men's
18:49
washroom, encouraging men to
18:51
powder their noses. And it's
18:54
squarely blamed Valentino
18:56
without saying it. The editorial accused
18:59
Valentino of being gay.
19:02
Valentino challenged the anonymous
19:04
author, first to a duel of honor
19:06
and then to a boxing match, but before
19:09
anonymous could come forward it
19:11
was too late. Complaining
19:14
of terrible abdominal pains, Valentino
19:17
was given an emergency double operation
19:19
for acute appendicitis and perforated
19:22
gastric ulcers. The resulting
19:24
sepsis took his life. After
19:26
a week that
19:34
will, Valentino
19:39
died at twelve ten pm on Monday
19:41
August. This
19:45
tribute song was written by Vernon
19:47
Dolhart. Just ten days
19:49
after Valentino perished. The
19:52
Guardian newspaper wrote, no
19:54
monarch or war hero ever aroused
19:57
more sympathetic public interest anywhere
20:00
than Valentino during the illness,
20:02
which ended fatally. Today,
20:05
the press was flooded with reports
20:07
of fainting women and suicide attempts.
20:10
Twenty seven year old actress Peggy Scott
20:13
took her life in London by poison.
20:15
Twenty year old Angelina Celestina,
20:18
mother of two, took poison and
20:20
shot herself in the bowery. She
20:22
was rescued and briefly institutionalized.
20:26
Valentino received two separate
20:28
funerals the first in New York with
20:30
its riots and mayhem. Then
20:32
his body was transported cross country
20:35
via railroad to California.
20:37
At several stops, love struck fans
20:40
lay down on the tracks, delaying
20:42
the trains progress to Valentino's
20:44
final resting place in Hollywood.
20:49
Well, nobody in this country
20:51
had seen anything like it since
20:53
the death of Abraham Lincoln, though
20:55
that is really something else, you
20:58
know, when Lincoln does, his
21:00
body was carried in
21:02
a famous train ride, and
21:06
people gathered along
21:08
the tracks in morning
21:10
and tribute. And the same thing happened
21:13
when Valentino died. The
21:15
more sensationalized reactions to
21:17
Valentino's to death became part of the
21:19
national consciousness for decades
21:21
afterwards, as evidenced by
21:24
this brief side in Billy Wilder's
21:26
comedy Some Like It Hot. How
21:28
about Roseberry Short She slashed the
21:30
wrist when Valentino, Well, we might as well
21:32
all slash our risk unless we round up two games.
21:37
Valentino is buried next to June
21:40
Mathis, who, out of compassion,
21:42
allowed Valentino to be entuned in her
21:44
crypt at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
21:46
His estate couldn't afford to bury him
21:49
there. They rest side by side
21:53
Valentine,
21:55
but way
21:59
up, there's
22:04
on you story. Within
22:13
three years of his death, silent movies
22:16
were officially finished. Would Valentino
22:18
have made it in talkies, Well,
22:21
here's a rare recording of him singing
22:23
let's have a quick listen and wonder
22:25
what might have been. But
22:43
it was the singing voice of our next
22:45
Latin lover which would allow him
22:47
to make the jump to talkies. Night.
23:08
Ramon name
23:11
Samaniego Jose
23:14
Ramon Hill Samaniego was born
23:17
on February six Inturango,
23:20
Mexico. His large family
23:22
was wealthy and influential and
23:25
lost everything in the Mexican Revolution.
23:28
Seventeen year old Jose Ramon moved
23:31
to Los Angeles, where he supported
23:33
his family by working as a bus
23:35
boy, a nude model, and a movie
23:38
extra. He dreamed of singing
23:40
opera, and, just as Valentino
23:42
had, Samanego simplified
23:45
his name to Ramon
23:47
Navarro, although it was much more
23:49
frequently pronounced Ramon Navarro.
23:53
Superstardom came with the silent
23:56
version of Ben Her. Now,
23:59
this was thirty four years before Charlton
24:01
Heston's Panavision extravaganza
24:04
Ben Her, I Tell You the
24:06
day room falls, there will be a shout
24:08
of freedom such as the world has never heard
24:10
before. But
24:13
the earlier version was just as
24:15
epic, the most expensive movie
24:18
of its time, and it was written
24:20
by none other than June Mathis.
24:22
Mathis desperately wanted Valentino
24:25
for the title role, but Valentino
24:27
was at the time on the ounce with the studio.
24:30
Navarro got the lead. The
24:33
world had a new Latin lover, the
24:35
first Mexican actor to make it
24:38
in Hollywood. Navarro
24:40
could dance, and he could act. He
24:42
was funny, and this was key to
24:44
his success in talkies. He could
24:47
sing, I should like to hear
24:49
you sing. That's
24:52
easy. I think I looked
24:54
anywhere without any good. Here
24:57
he is singing the pagan love song from
25:00
the nine Polynesian romance
25:02
The Pagan Nice.
25:16
And here he is as a romantic and reckless
25:18
Napoleonic French officer in Devil
25:20
May Care. And
25:32
here he is crooning alongside fledgling
25:34
movie soprano and future star Jeanette
25:37
McDonald in n GM's The Cat
25:39
and the Fiddle. Okay,
25:50
so maybe that pigeon like warbling
25:52
is not to our current tastes, But
25:55
save your bread crumbs. Navarro's
25:57
operetta style of singing was all
25:59
the rage at the time. I'm Navarro
26:01
had only one accent for all of his
26:03
speaking roles. Whether he was playing an
26:05
Egyptian, Belgian or Austrian,
26:07
he always spoke with his natural, lilting
26:10
Mexican accent. Here
26:12
he is as a Russian. Just go with
26:14
it, wooing the world weary Swedish
26:17
screen siren Greta Garbo
26:19
in Mata Hari's a strange
26:21
boy who loves you, William,
26:24
I love you as when a door's sacred
26:26
things. Let's sink of things.
26:29
God, country, honor you
26:33
now. Navarro was not the sex god
26:35
that Valentino evoked on screen. He
26:37
was short, with a smallish mouth,
26:41
and while he was definitely athletic, he
26:44
was also slightly pudgy.
26:47
Navarro's seduction technique, even
26:50
in the films where he played a cad, was
26:54
playful, naughty, innocent,
26:57
Oh you would go, that would
27:00
do you little? In
27:04
a word, Ramon Navarro was cute,
27:07
a lovable, love struck scamp,
27:10
and an uninhibited romantic with
27:12
loads of charm. I lost my career
27:14
today, but I don't care. I'm
27:16
happy today. I found the most glorious
27:19
girl in the whole world. Nothing
27:21
about Navarro spoke of menace or
27:23
danger. Today I found
27:26
love. Ironically,
27:30
Navarro reached his peak and popularity
27:32
at a time when prejudice towards Mexican
27:34
immigrants had become extremely common.
27:37
Mexicans had been welcomed as cheap labor
27:39
to the US, but at the same time
27:42
they were resented, and Hollywood's
27:44
depictions of handlebarred bandidos
27:46
in westerns were at least partially
27:48
to blame. Whether Valentino
27:50
and Navarro were sensations because
27:53
or in spite of being immigrants is
27:55
hard to say, but the studios
27:57
consciously avoided casting either
28:00
of them as their native nationalities.
28:02
To audiences, they were simply acceptably
28:05
exotic celebrities. Now,
28:07
until four Novarro
28:10
was one of the world's biggest stars,
28:12
one of the few to straddle silent films
28:15
and talkies. Then two
28:17
things happened. Hollywood
28:20
turned toward more stoic, traditionally
28:22
manly man like Clark Cable
28:25
and Gary Cooper for its romantic
28:27
male leads that was
28:29
not Navarro. At the same time,
28:32
the old fashioned operettas that
28:34
had made Navarro so popular fell
28:36
out of fashion. In favor of newer
28:39
sounding musicals, led by the likes
28:41
of fred As Stair. I'm
28:45
longing to be in chains
28:53
and that's with me. One
28:56
final MGM musical, The Night
28:58
Is Young, in cemented
29:01
the end for Navarro with
29:05
us and apple Struds.
29:08
I've ordered apple Strudo without
29:12
students. Love
29:15
you listen. I happen
29:17
to love both veener Schnitzel and apple
29:19
Strudel, But this movie gave me indigestion.
29:22
It tanked with both critics and audiences,
29:26
and m GM fired Navarro. Navarro
29:29
had had a good run, make that a great run.
29:32
He lived comfortably over the next few decades,
29:34
even helping to take care of his many siblings
29:36
and their families, having smartly
29:39
invested his money in real estate. Oh,
29:41
I feel very fortunate because I
29:43
know people that have certainly much more
29:45
intelligence than I had, an intelligence and
29:49
ability, and yet I'd be fortunate
29:51
in the investing my money rightly. Ramon
29:56
Navarro's legacy would likely be his
29:59
very real early stardom
30:01
if not for the way he died at
30:03
the age of sixty nine. Navarro was
30:06
murdered in his Hollywood home on
30:08
October by
30:10
two male hustlers. The
30:13
details are lurid, and we're
30:15
not going to get into them here, but
30:17
the general circumstances of his death
30:19
and the trial that followed revealed
30:22
to the world what Hollywood insiders had
30:24
long known. Navarro was
30:26
gay. As
30:29
a young star, he had refused to give
30:31
into studio pressure to marry a woman.
30:34
In his early days, he'd had a few relationships,
30:37
but as he grew older, biographer Andre
30:39
Suarez beliefs Navarro had
30:41
become less self accepting and
30:43
found it harder to reconcile his Catholic
30:46
faith with his sexuality. He
30:48
drank to excess, and he paid for
30:50
sex. When he eventually lost
30:53
his driver's license, navarro secretary
30:55
would drive him to church. If Navarro
30:58
noticed a handsome young man walking the sidewalk,
31:00
he would quickly cross himself. At
31:03
the trial of his murderers, the
31:05
defense attorney victim blamed,
31:08
saying contemptuously to the jury,
31:10
back in the days of Valentino, this
31:12
man who set female hearts of flutter
31:15
was nothing but a queer. Navarro,
31:18
he argued, had invited this upon himself.
31:22
Sadly in that
31:24
was a compelling argument. Neither
31:26
murderer served more than nine years
31:28
for this crime. Posthumously,
31:32
Navarro's name fell further into
31:34
disgrace thanks to Hollywood Babylon.
31:37
Hollywood Babylon is a book by
31:39
a man named Kenneth Anger, and
31:42
that's pretty much where the facts end. It's
31:44
attacking and tasteless compilation
31:46
of scandals and hearsay about
31:49
the very first movie stars, and
31:51
it was a best seller. The most infamous
31:53
edition in included
31:56
gruesome graphic photos of celebrity
31:58
deaths we its litany
32:00
of lies. Hollywood Babylon ensured
32:03
that Navarro's death would overshadow
32:06
his life.
32:11
When the fabulous MGM retrospectives
32:13
That's Entertainment and its sequel
32:16
were released in the nineteen seventies, they
32:18
included dozens of clips from Hollywood's
32:20
earliest musicals. Navarro
32:23
was conspicuously absent at
32:26
that time. It may have been impossible to honor
32:29
him properly without invoking his
32:31
recent troubling demise. And
32:33
that's a big shame. Tears
32:36
to remembering Ramon Navarro as
32:38
he was in his Latin Lover Heyday with
32:42
that wonderful warble up
32:59
next, Lat Lover's invade television,
33:02
just before their last big hurrah on
33:04
the silver screen. You know, Ricky
33:07
another Rudolph Valentino, Ricky
33:10
Ricky ricking
33:13
me. That's who the
33:28
studio just had to go over and have my picture
33:30
taken with Ricky Ricardo, whoever
33:33
he is? Haven't you
33:35
mad? You? He's a handsome
33:37
Latin with an accent. He's the
33:39
end the living en.
33:44
By the nineteen fifties, the whole
33:46
idea of the Latin lover had become
33:48
something of a punch line on TV. Ricardo
33:52
Alberto Fernando Ricardo, I
33:55
love Lucy's Ricky Ricardo has
33:58
played by Desi Arnaz, is
34:00
hardly dangerous. This Latin
34:02
lover was safely domesticated.
34:05
What a dream of situation. And I
34:07
bet you know a million girls? Where's your address
34:09
book? I burned it.
34:13
I hadn't been in this country very long, and Lucy
34:16
said it was part of the American marriage ceremony.
34:21
Over on the big screen. The Latin
34:23
lover vehicles of the period were
34:26
gloriously cheeseball. Here's
34:28
Mexican Heartthrob Ricardo Montalban
34:31
teaching some poor sap his own
34:33
seduction technique. In Neptune's
34:37
Daughter, you must say to her, why
34:42
do I have to speak Spanish? Because it's a language
34:45
of love? Women can resist it. Not
34:47
surprisingly, Montaban didn't
34:50
like being typecast, as he later
34:52
recalled in a CBS interview, but
34:54
I didn't know what it meant, you see Latin love
34:57
it. I it meant a
34:59
man, I guess I going into Hollywood with
35:01
slick hair, Natalie
35:04
dressed and kissing ladies hands,
35:06
you know. And it was a caricature, so
35:08
I I kind of resented it. There were vapid
35:10
roles. Perhaps the most successful
35:13
of the Latin lovers of this period, and
35:15
one of the last, was dapper
35:17
Debonair Fernando Lamas.
35:20
Aren't you rather forgetting yourself? Maybe
35:24
I always forget myself when I'm
35:26
near a beautiful rule. Neither
35:28
dangerous like Valentino nor
35:30
boyish like Navarro, Lamas
35:33
was instead a smooth operator.
35:36
Come to my home tomorrow and I
35:38
will show you the real Gord of California, the
35:41
sweet smelling hay and plums,
35:43
and the grapes, and the prod cattle and the bigs.
35:47
Do you like pigs, lady? Normally that's
35:50
a few. At the height of his popularity,
35:53
Fernando married movie star and businesswoman
35:56
are Lean Tall, a Minnesotan
35:58
of Norwegian descent, and the
36:01
couple were expecting a child when
36:03
they spoke to Edward R. Murrow on person
36:05
to person, have you picked a name for
36:07
the baby and not? Not yet.
36:10
We have in mind a couple of names.
36:12
But he's not quite easy, isn't
36:15
No. It's not easy to see both my father and for not
36:17
to want a boy. So we've been concentrating only
36:20
on boys names, right. You see, he's
36:22
got to go with the name Lamas, and
36:24
I don't think that, for example, Sam Lamas
36:26
would really go out together. You know, they
36:28
did not name their son Sam.
36:31
As much as I was stereotyped as a jock,
36:33
Dad was stereotyped as a
36:35
Latin lover. That's actor
36:38
and son of Fernando Lorenzo
36:40
Lamas. And he told me
36:43
it's good to be stereotyped and have steady
36:45
work, then to not be stereotyped
36:47
and go without having the phone ring for months
36:50
at a time. Lorenzo
36:52
would go on to have his own movie and TV
36:55
career. I first came
36:57
to know him for his work on the nighttime soap
37:00
Falcon Crest. You created
37:02
Falcon Crest in your own image, Grandmother,
37:04
My mother and I are the way we are because of you and if
37:07
I've turned against you, it's your own fault. You
37:09
get out of my sight.
37:13
I really think the Latin lover was introduced
37:16
to the American audience to give people
37:18
a chance to look at an emotional
37:21
man, a man that is
37:23
not afraid to show his feelings.
37:26
Fernando Lamas was discovered
37:28
in his native Argentina by an MGM
37:31
talent scout. He was of a group
37:34
of people like ss A Ramaron, Ricardo
37:37
montal Bond that were brought to the
37:39
studio system to play
37:41
that kind of that spoiler,
37:43
the Latin lover that comes into the storyline
37:46
and kind of breaks up the couple, and
37:48
they would play the continental swave, you know,
37:50
sophisticated man about town. How
37:52
many may have told you that you're the most
37:55
beautiful girl they have ever seen. Fernando
37:58
took to the Latin lover role on screen
38:01
and off movie Star and Champions
38:03
Swimmer. Esther Williams would become
38:06
his fourth wife. She later
38:08
recalled the first time they met, tell
38:10
me something, Fernando, you have a terrible
38:13
reputation. Do
38:15
you still have a lot of fooling around to do? And
38:18
he said, such an honest question deserves
38:21
an out to answer. He says, I'm afraid I do,
38:23
and I said, you kill me. I
38:25
said goodbye to him and I was saw him for
38:27
eight years. By the late fifties,
38:30
Fernando was eager to leave the
38:32
onscreen part of the role behind.
38:34
I'm very happy to say that I'm walking away
38:37
from one role that I seem to
38:39
be stuck with in quite
38:41
another of my pictures in Hollywood. That's what I
38:43
called the Latin lover type of a role,
38:45
which is the one dimensional you know
38:47
only it calls for a starting one hand, a
38:49
blonde dame on the other, and the horse waiting
38:51
outside that's all black
38:54
hair and long pink. And
38:56
indeed, by the end of the decade, the
38:59
Latin lover had largely banished
39:01
from the big screen. But, much
39:03
to the dismay of Lamas, this
39:06
didn't lead to better opportunities. As
39:08
he later explained to Johnny Carson,
39:11
I'm in a nine sixty. No
39:14
foreign man is allowed to play a leading
39:16
role. Like if we had an operation of
39:18
something. You didn't
39:21
know that you have an operations, You're
39:23
gonna may love an Marsa. Now you play
39:25
the friend of the leading man, who
39:27
is some dumb guy from Topeka
39:30
or oh, you'll
39:32
play the heavy. The Latin lover
39:34
was being replaced by the Latin
39:37
criminal, all too often the
39:39
urban gang member by
39:41
Ella Nasa collection
39:43
time. Okay, girl, come on come,
39:46
I'm gonna get the money ready. This man
39:48
needs some great Former
39:50
movie star Latin lovers had
39:52
to turn elsewhere for work. By
39:54
your guests, I am Mr Rourke, your
39:56
host. Welcome to Fantasy
39:59
Island. Ricardo Montauban
40:01
became the star of TV's Fantasy
40:03
Island, where I would watch him every
40:06
Saturday night. Smiles,
40:08
everyone smiles. No
40:13
longer cast as a romantic lead,
40:16
he was also during commercial breaks
40:18
romancing car seats,
40:22
venue small prison. Here
40:24
is the warm, thickly cushion contour
40:27
seats available even in Fine
40:29
Corinthiander. By
40:31
the way, fine Corinthian leather is
40:33
a marketing term, not any actual
40:35
type of leather. As for Fernando Lamas,
40:38
he turned to directing for television.
40:41
He directed Lorenzo in several episodes
40:43
of Falcon Crest. Fernando's
40:46
name and fame slowly faded
40:48
until Pop Culture twice turned
40:51
the spotlight back on him.
40:53
It's time now for Fernando's
40:56
bideaway. Find
41:00
that yours, my
41:02
friends, I'm so happy to be at tonight. In
41:05
the recurring Saturday Night Live segment
41:07
Fernando's Hideaway, Billy
41:09
Crystal parodied the Elder Lamas
41:12
inspired says Lorenzo buy
41:14
an appearance Fernando had made on The
41:16
Tonight Show, and Billy was watching
41:19
Dad the way he was on Johnny Carson, and Dad
41:21
came in and appeared, and he had a little bit of
41:23
a cult. Johnny said, So for
41:25
I understand you're a little under the weather tonight,
41:28
because yes, Johnny and Lutheran to the weather,
41:30
not not, you know, feeling to
41:33
moral us. But it's always
41:35
better to look good than to feel good, right,
41:38
I would rather look good than to feel good. You know
41:40
what I'm saying to your dolling mama.
41:43
You look thank
41:47
you, but you look pretty good yourself.
41:49
I'm rushing inside my temperature. Dad
41:52
loved it because Billy was introducing my father
41:54
to an audience of people that didn't know who he was.
41:57
By the way, there really was a Fernando's
41:59
Hie to way in that appearance on Person
42:02
to Person. Back in nineteen fifty seven, Fernando
42:04
led Edward R. Murrow on a tour through
42:07
his Manhattan town house and to
42:09
his man cave. This is the
42:12
room where you got away from it all? Is that? That's why?
42:14
Definitely, you know, I think a man who hasn't what has
42:16
to be along with himself. But what's
42:18
the sign just beside you? There is the sign
42:21
here says exactly Fernando's high
42:23
The way is the picture of a bullfight? Is
42:25
it? Fernando Lamas died
42:27
in but another
42:30
tribute of a sort came posthumously
42:33
in a popular beer campaign in two
42:35
thousand six. In the First
42:37
Life, he was himself. If
42:41
opportunity knocks and he's not home,
42:44
opportunity wings. He
42:47
gave his father the talk. He
42:51
is the most Interesting man
42:53
in the world. Character
42:55
actor Jonathan Goldsmith, a
42:58
good friend to Fernando's audition and
43:00
for a commercial for Doseki Spear and
43:03
the character that Dosekis was looking for
43:06
was some sort of Latin lover
43:08
type. Goldsmith, a self described
43:11
Jewish guy from the Bronx, summoned
43:13
the spirit of his beloved lost
43:16
friend and the most Interesting Man in the World
43:18
was basically from Jonathan's
43:20
memory of the times that he spent with Dad.
43:23
Running in place will never get you the
43:25
same results as running
43:27
from Claya Fernando
43:31
Lamas was never entirely able
43:33
to shake the Latin lover label. His
43:36
New York Times obituary David October
43:39
two starts off, Fernando
43:43
Lamas, the silver haired star
43:45
of numerous Latin Lover movies,
43:48
died today of cancer. He was
43:50
sixty seven years old. There
44:00
when you realize that Valentino he
44:04
invented the leading men, and he came
44:06
on and he invented the thing, and he dressed himself
44:08
funny, and Buddy caught on, and
44:11
then there were a lot of funnis that followed.
44:14
We've left the Latin lover behind
44:16
us, and as with most all
44:18
stereotypes, that's for the best.
44:22
But let's also acknowledge that the Latin
44:24
Lover allowed foreigners to be
44:26
leading men for the first time. And
44:28
while it's rare to see someone marketed
44:31
as a Latin lover today,
44:33
some of his better aspects have
44:35
been absorbed, assimilated
44:37
into today's leading men of all
44:40
ethnicities. Even the most
44:42
macho man mus now also have some
44:45
emotional awareness and vulnerability.
44:48
Yes, behind each posturing, chest
44:51
thumping bro in Magic Mike, there's
44:53
a surprisingly sensitive guy who
44:56
just wants to be loved. I'm not
44:58
my lifestyle. I'm not a in
45:00
my magic in my magic
45:02
mike right now talking to you. I'm not my goddamn
45:05
job. And that's not who, That's not what I That's
45:07
not what I do. That's I mean, this is
45:09
what I do, but it's not who I am. Sure
45:11
every once in a while somebody bemoans
45:14
the loss of the stoic leading man.
45:16
What have that happened to? Gary Cooper?
45:19
The strong, silent type that
45:22
was an American. He wasn't in touch with his
45:24
feelings. He just did what he had to do to what
45:26
they didn't know. Once they got Gary Cooper
45:28
in touch with his feelings that they wouldn't be able to shut
45:31
him up. But there's no
45:33
going back day, not
45:36
form, nothing. But you get a little confused
45:38
here. That was the movies there's
45:44
on you have.
45:59
I certainly hope you enjoyed this mobituary.
46:02
May I ask you to please rate and review the
46:04
podcast. You can also follow mobituaries
46:06
on Facebook and Instagram, and you
46:08
can follow me on Twitter at Morocca.
46:11
Listen to mobituaries on Amazon Music
46:14
or wherever you get your podcasts,
46:16
and might I suggest mobituaries
46:18
great lives worth reliving the New
46:20
York Times best selling book, now
46:22
available in paperback and audio
46:25
book. It includes plenty of stories
46:27
not in the podcast, and I gotta
46:29
say it's kind of a perfect stocking stuffer.
46:35
This episode of Mobituaries was
46:37
produced by Francisco Robina
46:39
and Aaron Shrank. Our team
46:42
of producers also includes Wilco, Martina
46:44
Scaceto, and me Morocca.
46:47
It was edited by Moral Walls and
46:49
engineered by Josh Hahn, with fact
46:51
checking by Naomi Barr. Our production
46:54
company is Neon hom Media. Our
46:57
archival producer is Jamie Benson.
46:59
Our theme music is written by Daniel
47:01
Hart. Indispensable
47:03
support from Craig Swaggler, Dustin
47:06
Gervais, Alan Peg, Reggie Basil
47:08
and everyone at CBS News Radio.
47:11
Special thanks to Andre Suarez,
47:14
Mattia, Santonio Bombal Lauda,
47:16
Isabel Cerna and Alberto
47:18
Robina, the Unsinkable
47:21
Aaron Shrink as our senior producer.
47:23
Executive producers for Mobituaries include
47:26
Steve Raises and Morocca. The
47:29
series is created by Yours Truly
47:32
and as always, undying gratitude
47:34
to Rand Morrison and John carp
47:37
for helping breathe life into
47:39
Mobituaries. Before
47:42
we go Hollywood also had its
47:44
female Latin lovers. The pioneering
47:47
and stunning Dolores del Rio
47:49
was Ramon Navarro's second cousin.
47:52
Del Rio was often called the female
47:54
Rudolf Valentino. She and
47:56
her contemporary Lupe Vells
47:59
paved the way for other Latin actresses
48:01
like Carmen Miranda and Maria Montez.
48:04
The storied history of those Latin
48:07
lovers is its own tail, deserving
48:09
its own future mobituary.
48:12
I think you like that very much. You
48:15
like that too, of course I'm willing to
48:17
everyone else. Is you want to
48:19
know what I think. I can't tell
48:21
what I said. It's okay, stan Leando, do you make it
48:24
sounds nothing? You don't know not to call
48:26
the battles? Yeah, you're not. Wish I couldn't
48:29
you know saying that in English
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